Indestructible
by illyriazshell
Summary: As he reached out to touch her face, he whispered in her ear, 'We're indestructable, you and I.' " Rated M for very dark themes and a bit of sexual content.


**A/N: I wrote this in under an hour and a half, published it, and then came back a week and a half later to polish it up. That I wrote this so quickly was sort of an exercise for me; usually I spend forever obsessing on a fic. Also, this is my first Sylaire fic. I'd love to hear your feedback.**

**Disclaimer: If I owned Heroes or any of it's characters, I'd be writing the show better than Tim Kring. (i.e. Nothing is mine)**

* * *

In a thriller or a mystery, the reveal has to be realistic for people to accept it. They will accept the unbelievable, but not the ridiculous. Sci-fi and fantasy, by their very nature, are not constrained in such a way, but are instead burdened with a necessity for believable characters with realistic behaviours in ridiculous circumstances. The catch is, if the characters don't act believably, then one can no longer suspend their disbelief.  
It is this trade-off of unbelievable reality for ridiculous fantasy that determines how many spend their time; invest yourself in the way the world is or escape to a place where not everything necessarily needs to make sense.

* * *

_Awareness. Again. No._

_It was cold. It hadn't been cold for some time, or, at least, the cold couldn't be felt._

_Dark; it was also very dark. A bare lightbulb hung above, but it had burnt out ages ago. There was the barest trace of light coming from the crack underneath the door.  
_  
_Wet. It was probably cold because it was wet; though the wet had been warm before..._

_The door opened and suddenly it was blindingly bright._

_"No," she whispered. "You were gone."_

_

* * *

  
_

Claire's sleep was violently disturbed when the window to her college room whipped open so fast that the glass shattered upon impact with the adjacent walls.

"Good evening, Claire. Miss me?"

Even though the figure was cast in shadow, she would recognize that voice anywhere. Words that had been attached to that voice would haunt her for the rest of her life; but she had figured she would only be haunted in her dreams.

"Sylar. No!" she shouted. "You're dead!" She haphazardly moved her hand against the back wall, searching desperately for the light switch, without tearing her eyes away from the window. Before she had found it, it flicked on anyway. Sure enough, there he stood. She gasped; "I watched you burn."

"You of all people should've known that couldn't be true. That what you saw couldn't be real." In one swift movement, he was on her bed. _Sylar_ was on her bed. She went to run for the door which had been slightly ajar, but it slammed shut and was bolted in one hand movement. In another, she was immobilized, and as he reached out to touch her face, he whispered in her ear, "We're indestructable, you and I."

* * *

_She tried to move, but couldn't. Even if the cold steel hadn't kept her there, she would still be physically incapable of escape.  
_  
_He had been gone. For a while, she thought anyway. She had had peace for days. As much peace as one could have in a cold, dark, wet basement, and in her condition. Now he was back._

_

* * *

  
_

"Get. Away. From. Me." Claire enunciated as best she could through telekinetically gritted teeth.

"Oh, but Claire, Claire, Claire!" he shouted mockingly as he got up, turned his back to her, looked out the window, and placed his hands on the windowsill. "Don't you want to know _how_? How can I tell you all about all your family's little lies, " he added with a relished grin, "if I leave?"

"I don't care. Just get out. Or I'll make sure you stay dead this time." She wished more than anything that her body was under her control. She'd reach for the knife she'd kept in the dresser beside her dorm bed ever since he'd been gone. She'd never expected this, but she'd dreaded it since the day they set Sylar aflame in Coyote Sands. She'd hoped she'd never needed it.

"Well, I don't want to leave. I like it right here. You're integral to my plans. We're special; but you're special to the people I want to hurt. " He was upon her again, stroking her face, her neck. "And wait until you hear what they did to me; to you. You'll want to hurt them too."

* * *

_"Go back" she coughed. "Go back to being gone."_

_"Change in our plans."He grabbed her recklessly and shoved her into the corner where she trembled. "It's time to speed this up. Finish it."  
_  
Oh please, finish it! _one voice in her head screamed. But instead, she said"You can't hurt me."_

_"We'll see, babydoll."_

_

* * *

  
_

"Your father, your real one, is dead. You have me to thank for that."

At that moment, everything boiled up inside her, condensed as tears, and she couldn't stop herself from screaming "You monster!!! How could...Why?!" She let out a wail. Why wasn't either of her dorm neighbours responding to all this noise? It didn't matter; she'd find a way to finish him and didn't want people to walk in on that. That could get them dead.

The hold on her left arm loosened and she used her full strength to leave scratch marks across his face. "Why do you take everything from me?!"

He laughed as the wounds healed instantly. As violent as her hand had been on his face, his hand was soft and gentle as it caressed the skin of her cheek. "I'm about to give you what you most want in the world right now. Revenge."

* * *

_Shallow cuts. Little pools of blood on her body when it couldn't drip to the floor. She missed those._

_Instead, they were deep now. He was hitting organs, she was sure. She didn't know it was possible to feel this much pain and be numb all over simultaneously, but she was sure that she'd need whatever his knife was hitting inside her._

_"I'm going to heal...it doesn't matter what you do to me..._" _she managed to spit out along with a mouth fill of blood._

_""There's no time for your games now. You need to be finished before they arrive."_

_"Monster."_

_

* * *

  
_

"I'll rip your flesh off, bit by bit. I'll smash your brain into a thousand pieces. So help me god, I won't need to find the spot that shuts you down because there will be nothing left of it when I'm through." She said monotonously as the tears streaked down her face; he caught each one with his thumb and brushed it away.

"Not on me, Claire. I've done more to you than a thousand years of vengeance could satisfy. I know we both have the time; but why bother wasting it on that? That kind of anger and pain directed at me will drive you insane." He smiled. "There are more effective, healthy places to focus your emotions. You're grandmother, for instance? Parkman? Bennet? I may have taken from you, but I never betrayed you like they did. Never played_ those_ kind of games."

She ignored his touch, but his words held her stronger than his mind. "What are you talking about?"

* * *

_"You're a monster..but you can't hurt me."_

_"Oh, I can and I am. Wait until you're done. You'll be the most beautiful of them all."_

_The pain was blinding._

_"How else can I break you?"_

_"I... don't.... break." If only he would._

_"Oh, you can break. So many different ways."_

* * *

She heard it all; how he'd killed Nathan, how Angela and Noah had used Matt to cover up his death. How they set up a ceremony with a fake body to deceive her into submission. She couldn't tell what she was more furious about; the fact that her family had lied to her like that about something this important, or that she was too focused on hating them right now to even care that the man in front of her was the one who actually did the deed.

She was so enveloped in her rage that she failed to notice that he was kissing her. Caressing her. She didn't even care to flinch.

* * *

_"I can't feel you..." Was all she said over and over as the knife cut deeper in every one of her limbs, yet her body refused to pass out._

_Just then, there was a loud crash and the basement door opened again. Boots, stomping, yells, shots, and quiet._

* * *

Suddenly, she was on Sylar. He had clearly released her from his control when he'd felt her responding to his kiss.

She pushed him on his back and straddled him. She needed to feel something other than this...this pain. She'd missed the physical sensation, but her emotions at the moment twisted her stomach into a knot and she needed something, anything to escape.

* * *

_He collapsed on her, and she could see the back of his head had no back anymore._ _The wet was warm again as it leaked from his skull onto her stomach. She looked up and saw ten FBI agents, or possibly five as her vision was doubled, flood into the room. Shouting stopped as one quietly approached her to lift His body off of her, and suddenly she was very aware of the fact that she was naked._

_

* * *

  
_She removed her top, and with his mind, her bra was shed to the floor. She moved to kiss him, but instead she bit down into his neck and practically tore a chunk out. He yelled, but his anger subsided as an amused look crossed his face as he glared at her.

"Claire, this I never expected from you. I was thinking more death and destruction, but if I'm how you want to get back at your family, I am more than game."

* * *

_"I'm so very sorry , Miss Bennet, that we didn't get to you sooner. Talk to me. Can you hear me Claire?"_

_

* * *

  
_She shook her head. "Just make me feel. Anything but this." And he did. Sylar scratched her; she healed. He bit her; she healed. He roughed her up as he fucked her; bruised her only in theory as the blood vessels healed before any colour could form. He even found the knife in her drawer and cut her; the wounds healed the moment the knife left her skin. She stabbed him back. Again and again. Just as her, the marks disappeared as instantly as they were made. As he kissed her fiercely, he stabbed her in the gut.

Then everything came into focus in Claire's head and nothing made sense.\

* * *

_For the first time, she looked down across her body; she could barely feel it, but what she saw horrified her. There was blood gushing out of multiple stab wounds. She was black and blue and red all over. Across her chest, the word "Sylar" had been carved and it too was bleeding. _That can't be right_, she thought. Claire didn't cut, didn't bruise, didn't bleed. Not like this. It was too much for her to take_ _in._  
_  
To the man hovering above her, she choked out the words "It's alright. I'll heal."_  
_  
Then blackness hit her like a tidal wave and she finally succumbed to sleep._

* * *

"No, no, no. Wait. I'd never do this. Not with you." She lept from the bed.

"You are, Claire."

"No. You're a monster. You're the man that haunts my dreams. I'd never let you touch me."

"I hate to disagree..."

"No. This doesn't make sense! I'd never...why isn't anyone in here? Why hasn't anyone heard us? Why would I forget about everything you've done to me? Why would I let you hurt me like that, even if I can heal..."

Sylar just looked at Claire sinisterly, and she paled. "Wait. No. You're not him."

"Who do you want me to be, babydoll?"

His face began to morph. No longer was it young and lust filled. His visage shifted to an old man, grizzled hair, missing teeth. His hate bore into her.

"No!" she cried. 'I don't want to see _you_!"

He stared. This couldn't be.

"But, you're dead."

"No," he said as the room began to spin around her. "You're dead. Look."

Claire hesitantly took her eyes from him and looked down at her naked body. What was clean and undamaged slowly became dirty and torn. All the cuts, all the bruises, everything Sylar had done to her body, all reappeared, and she was drenched in blood. And then, suddenly, aching pain crushed her and she found herself lying on the floor.

Everything turned white.

* * *

"... finally got the bastard, sir..."

She knew she was in an ambulance; she could tell by the small cramped space. And all the medical supplies. Everything was fuzzy, both visually and audibly.

"...heard us coming...tried to finish her off before we got there....rushed the ritual..."

Her eyelids fluttered for a moment, and she tried to inhale deeply, but it was impossible. It was like her lungs couldn't get enough air.

"...fourteen girls down...basement... All in pieces... "Sylar" carved across them..."

She tried to look down, but her head was secured in place. Everything hurt.

"...bringing the fifteenth...hospital...Claire Bennet...doesn't look good..."

She tried to speak, but the mask covered her face.

"Doctor says she's delirious... down there...at least a month..."

She managed to move her left arm clumsily enough to knock the mask from her mouth. Still strapped to the side of her cheek, she struggled to breath as the air hurt her lungs even more.

"...other ones killed quickly...kept her around..."

She tried to mumble that she'd be alright, but was having trouble forming words. They stuck in her throat, like the breaths she was struggling to take.

"...gone into her own brain...fantasy world...like what's happening isn't what's going on in her head...heroes...villains..."

There was some kind of static response she couldn't make out because, along with her other four senses, her already damaged hearing was quickly fading.

"No... incredibly far gone...if she miraculously survives.... wheelchair for the rest of her life..."

As she faded for the last time, she could't tell if it was just her sense of time or her heartbeat was really slowing down as the electrocardiogram beeped away.

"...seem to have broken her mind as much as he broke her body..."

She coughed, and before her body finally shut down for good and her eyes went cold, Claire struggled to whisper back,

"Don't worry. I can't break. I'm indestructible."


End file.
